seo isn't just for web geeks
DESCRIPTION
When it comes to search results, marketing is literally a game of inches: click-through rates for the top positions on a search engine results page are several times higher than those for lower positions on the same page. That?s why companies are turning to Search Engine Optimization (SEO), primarily using outside consultants. However, much of the information that ends up on your website, whether it?s marketing collateral, product specifications, white papers or techdocs, originates outside of your web team. You can continue to let SEO consultants fix your content after the fact, or you can optimize for SEO during the content creation process and keep it optimized through revisions and updates. In this presentation, you?ll learn the factors that affect your search rankings, which factors are under your control, and how to create intelligent content that?s optimized for search. You can apply these factors to all content types: semantic XML markup, desktop publishing, word processing, and web-based authoring. By following a simple process and keeping search in mind, you can improve your content?s ranking in search engines, lower your SEO costs, increase your click-through rate, and have an impact on revenue.TRANSCRIPT
SEO Isn’t Just for Web Geeks
Intelligent Content Conference 2013
PG Bartlett
Today’s Discussion
Impact of your search rankings Factors that affect your search rankings Simple process to:
– Improve your content’s ranking in search engines– Increase your click-through rate
What Do You Write?
Pre-Sales Information Post-Sales Information
Why Improve Findability?
Pre-Sales Information Post-Sales Information
Increase Revenue Improve Support
Google Isn’t Everything
Google; 66.9%
Bing; 16.0%
Yahoo; 12.2%
Ask; 3.2% AOL; 1.8%
US Search Market Share
Google Isn’t Everything
Baidu; 73.0%
Qihoo; 9.6%
Sogou; 7.8%
Google*; 4.7%Soso; 3.7% Bing; 0.5%
China Search Market Share * Google left China in 2010
Google Isn’t Everything
Alfresco says 75% of queries on their support knowledgebase come via Google
SEO Goal: Visibility
Organic search results
Google AdWords (Paid advertisements)
SERPs = Search Engine Result Pages
HP
Fujitsu
IBM
IBM
HP
CTR
Higher Rank = Higher Click-Through Rate
“Heat map” shows where users’ eyes spend time
Average Click-Through Rates (Google)
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 100%2%4%6%8%
10%12%14%16%18%20%C
lick-
Thr
ough
Rat
e
SERP PositionData from Slingshot SEO
1st position 4x better than 4th
2nd position 2x better than 4th
3rd position 1.5x better than 4th
HP
Fujitsu
IBM
IBM
HP
IBMCTR 10% (= 810 qualified visits)
FujitsuCTR 5% (= 405 qualified visits)
Conversion rate on website: 0.3% 2.4 transactions, new customers 1.2 transactions, new customers
Avg. Transaction $8000 Revenue+ $19,200 / month Revenue+ $9,600 / month
8100 searches / month“unix servers”:
What’s the Value of a Higher Ranking?
Pre-Sales Information
What’s the Value of a Higher Ranking?
Optimized support articles:
Impact on customer satisfaction & retention?
Post-Sales Information
100%
Hits
30%
Calls
Important Factors for Search Rankings
Keeping Up With
Search engines want to deliver relevant results 2011: Panda – focused on “quality” content
– Original (unique)– Authoritative– Substantial– Linguistically correct– Few ads
2012: Penguin – focused on spam– Keyword stuffing– Link stuffing
On-Page Optimization – Under Your Control
Content quality Keyword placement
– Title– Headings (H1, H2)– Links– Description (meta tag)– Most important keywords first– Maximum number of keywords: 2 to
20 Keyword density?
– Don’t overdo it Title
– Unique– 140 characters
But My Authoring Tool Has No Title Tag!
Then you’re not authoring in HTML So you must learn how your content transforms to HTML Specifically, how do you generate:
– Title– H1 & H2 headings– Meta description
Off-Page Optimization – Under Others’ Control
Links from other high-quality sites to yours
Social links
Server location & performance
Your SEO ProcessImprove Rank & CTR
Improve Rank
SEO Process
Keyword Research
KeywordManagement
KeywordMapping
On-pageOptimization
Off-pageOptimization
SEOMetrics
Pre- &
• What do your customers search for?
• What are profitable keywords to optimize for?
• What are my competitors doing?
You think of keywords
Google suggests others…
Google AdWords account/Tools & Analysis/Contextual Targeting Tool
SEO Process
Keyword Research
KeywordManagement
KeywordMapping
On-pageOptimization
Off-pageOptimization
SEOMetrics
Pre- &
• Determine target keyword list
• Group keywords (for example: product-related keywords)
• Group for language and region
SEO Process
Keyword Research
KeywordManagement
KeywordMapping
On-pageOptimization
Off-pageOptimization
SEOMetrics
Pre- &
• Select 1-3 keywords for each page
• Do NOT optimize multiple pages for the same keywords
SEO Process
Keyword Research
KeywordManagement
KeywordMapping
On-pageOptimization
Off-pageOptimization
SEOMetrics
Pre- &
• High-quality content
• Keyword placement (title, headings, links, description, most important first)
• No keyword stuffing!
• Unique title, 140 characters
SEO Process
Keyword Research
KeywordManagement
KeywordMapping
On-pageOptimization
Off-pageOptimization
SEOMetrics
Pre- &
• Get social
SEO Process
Keyword Research
KeywordManagement
KeywordMapping
On-pageOptimization
Off-pageOptimization
SEOMetrics
Pre- &
• KPIs (time on page, visitors, etc.)
• Analyze keyword performance
• Monitor site performance
Improve CTR
• Compelling & SEO friendly title
• Trustworthy and “readable” URL• Compelling description
• Great style, no grammar and spelling errors
How to Improve CTR
Pre-Sales Information
CTR Not Always Relative to Rank
Pre-Sales Information
“Rich snippets” change the math:
30% to 150% increase in CTR!
(Or not…)
What about this?
Rich Snippets
Types– People– Products– Businesses– Reviews– Events– Videos– Others (recipes & music)
Encoding options– Microdata (recommended)– Microformats– RDFa
Thank [email protected]